Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has called on his countrymen to largely accept the parliamentary elections scheduled for next Friday.
In his remarks broadcast on state television on Tuesday, Khamenei said that the intense participation in the poll will show the unity of the Iranians in the face of what he described as enemies, adding that the United States will fail to cause splits between the authorities and the Iranians.
The Iranian leader said that the elections will neutralize what he described as the bad American intent, and that voting is a revolutionary and national responsibility and a religious duty.
Khamenei also said that the next parliament will have no place for those who are afraid to speak against foreign enemies, as he put it.
The Guardian Council, which is responsible for reviewing applications for those who want to run, has refused to qualify for 6,850 moderate and conservative candidates. Also, about a third of the current representatives were not allowed to run again in the parliamentary elections on February 21.
The election campaigns are scheduled to end on Thursday evening, that is, on the eve of the vote. About 58 million are eligible to vote out of the 83 million who are Iran's population.